Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection

On Oct 28, 8:26 pm, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 26, 7:23 pm, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tim Tyler <seemy...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
dkomo wrote:
http://everything2.com/e2node/Stephen%2520Wolfram%2520vs.%2520Charles...

"To summarize, the lines have been drawn thus: Darwin says that natural
selection causes complexity by continuously moving organisms into
tighter synergy with their environment, necessitating said complexity.
Wolfram says complexity arises naturally with even the smallest change
in the organism's genetic makeup, and that natural selection serves
mainly to rein it in by culling the unworkable variations."
A storm in a teacup.  We have known about self-organising systems for
quite a while now, any yes, they do explain some features of organisms -
e.g. zebra stripe patterns, phylotaxis, etc.

It is how many years since Onsager got the Nobel prize for, among
other things, noting that non-equilibrium systems are often self-
organizing.

--
   --- Paul J. Gans
Beats me, but almost every year an economist gets one for noting just
that.

Are you claiming that out of the the current financial chaos
around the world will come Nirvanna?

:-)
:-)

No, I'm claiming that prior to 1970, in any generalized market system
where approximate neo-classical conditions were obtained, there always
existed one or more equilibrium point on the manifold of prices and
quantities of goods offered for sale, wherein all markets both cleared
*and* Pareto optimality could be obtained, and if it couldn't, there
always existed at least one hypothetical compensation arrangement that
was just as good, though it would often be difficult-to-impossible
even to imagine how it could be put into practice; also, don't tell
the kids that if more than two compensation strategies were possible,
an optimal solution could not be guaranteed because the relative
preferableness of the set of compensation strategies could, ordinally-
speaking, be non-transitive -- which you've gotta admit really, really
sucks. My claim continues that in 1970 George Akerlof published The
Market for Lemons, after which it became possible for no Pareto
optimal global allocation of prices and quantities to exist -- even
with compensation, for crying out loud! -- if prior to any possible
potential market transaction, one or more of the parties to the given
transaction knows stuff relevant to the transaction decision that one
or more of the other parties doesn't (e.g., a used car salesman knows
the jalopy he's flogging is a lemon, but the fool seriously thinking
of buying it doesn't).

Now here's the fun part. The important point is that if some non-
optimal point on the manifold is obtained due to some sucky temporary
dislocating event exogenous in origin (e.g., Mycroft Hand, the
Invisible Hand's smarter but indolent older brother, puts an icecube
down Invisible's back, resulting in a momentary global
disequilibrium), then all that stuff in the previous paragraph could
arguably describe you how easy it might in theory be to slide over the
manifold, toward a point satisfying both equilibrium and optimality
conditions, putting you (drum role) back in the saddle again.

By the way, no serious economist would promise Nirvana, they merely
assume it.

Mitchell Coffey

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection
    ... necessitating said complexity. ... organisms - e.g. zebra stripe patterns, phylotaxis, etc. ... *and* Pareto optimality could be obtained, and if it couldn't, there ... preferableness of the set of compensation strategies could, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection
    ... necessitating said complexity. ... organisms - e.g. zebra stripe patterns, phylotaxis, etc. ... *and* Pareto optimality could be obtained, and if it couldn't, there ... preferableness of the set of compensation strategies could, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection
    ... necessitating said complexity. ... organisms - e.g. zebra stripe patterns, phylotaxis, etc. ... *and* Pareto optimality could be obtained, and if it couldn't, there ... preferableness of the set of compensation strategies could, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection
    ... necessitating said complexity. ... organisms - e.g. zebra stripe patterns, phylotaxis, etc. ... *and* Pareto optimality could be obtained, and if it couldn't, there ... preferableness of the set of compensation strategies could, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection
    ... necessitating said complexity. ... organisms - e.g. zebra stripe patterns, phylotaxis, etc. ... *and* Pareto optimality could be obtained, and if it couldn't, there ... preferableness of the set of compensation strategies could, ...
    (talk.origins)